Data display interfaces are used to display data to a user so that the user can view and analyze the data. One example of a data display interface is a spreadsheet tool that displays content such as financial parameters in a table format. Other types of data display interfaces display different types of data in other structural and/or visual formats.
Conventional data display interfaces offer a variety of ways to vary the set of parameters that determine the particular set of data that is shown. Often, variation of these parameters replaces the entire displayed dataset. Replacing an entire dataset can consume more resources than otherwise might be necessary for a particular type of data analysis. Also, the relationships between successive states of the dataset can be hard to perceive.
Conventional data display interfaces address these types of problems by storing successions of datasets and allowing the user to successively view each of the datasets. For example, a user might use browser-style ‘back’ and ‘forward’ types of movements to change between the successions of datasets. However, this type of conventional navigation through successions of datasets is cumbersome and resource-intensive. Also, this type of conventional navigation through successions of datasets can make it difficult to see the changing effects of specific portions of the dataset.